Elasticsearch 101: Key Concepts, Benefits & Use Cases
Elasticsearch is defined as a distributed, open-source search and analytics engine. It is built on the Apache Lucene library & written in Java. It is mainly used to store, browse, and analyze large volumes of different types of data in near-real-time. As such, Elasticsearch retrieves and manages document-oriented, semi-structured data (eg. document, product, email searches, etc.) and is used to store data that needs to be further analyzed and categorized.
8 key concepts that reveal how Elasticsearch really works
To really understand this subject matter and what’s really going on behind the scenes, it’s critical to learn the terminology and concepts used to set up and manage Elasticsearch.?
Document?- A document is the fundamental unit of information entity represented in JSON format which can be stored and indexed.
Index?- An index is a collection of similarly-structured documents that enables quick and efficient data retrieval. The purpose of an index is to store logically-related documents.
Node - A node represents a single instance in the Elasticsearch process. It is a server used to store data that plays a role in indexing and searching. Different nodes interact within a cluster and discover each other by the shared cluster name.?
Cluster - A cluster (of nodes) stores all the data and enables indexing and searching. The role of the cluster is to distribute different tasks across the nodes it contains.
Shard?- Elasticsearch allows you to split the index into smaller pieces known as shards. Each shard is an instance of a Lucene index, which you can think of as a self-contained search engine that indexes and handles queries for a subset of the data in an Elasticsearch cluster.?
Replica - A replica is a copy of the primary shard used in case of failure.?
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Segment?- A segment is a chunk of a shard, where each index consists of one or more segments.
Mapping - Mapping represents the schema definition for the index. It helps avoid issues caused by automatic field detection which occurs when no mapping is defined.
Benefits
Elasticsearch is the go-to solution because it:
Elasticsearch is a go-to search solution for eCommerce stores, enterprises, and different website and application searches. It is commonly used for logging and log analytics, and metric analysis, but we should’s fail to mention that it is also practical for monitoring malicious activities and early fraud detection.?
Here at Inviggo, our developers got to see how big of a role Elasticsearch can play in browsing large volumes of data where users are not 100 percent certain about what they are looking for.
Find Elasticsearch cluster configuration tips and more use cases in our blog post.